Strategies for hotel revenue managers in COVID times: brace your business upfront! Part I

May 7, 2020 | COVID-19, Revenue Management

The spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 followed by the lockdown of many countries around the world is obviously very difficult for the whole travel industry. We understand you are doing your best to save your business. As travel and hotel enthusiasts, it hurts us to see how the hard work you all are putting into your businesses every day is overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis.
After the most urgent things are done, this is the time for all of us to concentrate on the future, be strategic and prepare for the time when the situation gets back under control. When it happens, you will be again very busy restoring your business to operations.
Therefore our team of experienced and certified revenue managers has prepared a list of the tips and recommendations of what you can do to start getting ready for the market bounce back already today and outpace your competitors.

Revenue management

Switch to flexibility
In conditions of instability, it is very important to allow your guest to choose a flexible rate at an affordable price. People will be still afraid to make plans, so definitely they will prefer flexible rates during the next few months. It is necessarily important to check the restrictions for flexible rates as well. Each hotel may have a different situation, but on average it is advisable to give the possibility of free cancellation 2-3 days before arrival. In case of late cancellation, the penalty should not exceed the first night.

Check your pricing structure
Review the pricing structure until the end of the year. Make sure that your Best Available Rate is available at all OTA. If you have a rate shopper, compare prices based on a refund rate. We are not recommending dumping the prices, but maybe for some dates, you should make adjustments. Some hotels build their pricing policies based on non-refundable rates, so, if that is your situation, please take a look at that. Try to find a balance between your rates and offer just 1 or 2 options with flexible conditions. Only closing the non-refundable rate and leaving the “unattractive” refund rate is not the right option. Make the flexible rate affordable and competitive.

Get used to more cancellations
Unfortunately, as you offer now free cancelation, expect to receive more cancellations than usual during the next few months. Offer upfront easy rescheduling of the booking instead of simple cancellation. When it comes to people’s health, all other plans take second place and guests will appreciate your understanding and kindness. Be patient, give people time to recover from the situation and high indicators will back to you again.

Extra tips:
Keep the non-refundable rates still available especially for higher room categories. That way you will be able to examine the customer’s behaviour and have the clear data for market recovery. But make sure you always offer the best price for the cheapest categories with a free cancelation. This will bring you up on any OTA search results.

2. Distribution

Extend the distribution period
Check your rates and availability for at least next year and make sure you are offering the possibility to make a reservation in your hotel in a long-term distance.
YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager offers an opportunity to distribute future rates without limits. Being presented on the long-term perspective is a must for every hotel. Not every channel will accept rates for a very long distance but make sure you are fully using the it’s capabilities.

Review your integration list
Use your channel manager’s help. Check the descriptions and rates on various resources where you are already presented. In parallel, start monitoring the integration list, available for connection. Pay your attention to B2B channels as well. These channels are not available for any “customer eye”, but they have a wide base of users and can bring you good income.
The increasing audience will help you to get more bookings not only through this new channel but also to expand the base of loyalty guests in the future, it will give you more visibility and advertising. The channel diversification is one of the key elements to maximize your revenue and keep the balance between customer segmentation.

Concentrate at your future guest
How can you choose a new channel? The first step is to identify the target customer for your hotel (geographic and demographic zone, the purpose of his stay, his budget). You should take into consideration the fact that the profile of your customer can change now. Crisis will influence travelling budgets and travel restrictions might modify the addressable market.
Having mapped out your target area, imagine the way your future guest is looking for accommodation. Try to follow his steps in the search. Review the properties listed at the new channel you’ve found (your competitors, target group), check the connectivity list of your channel manager and if they have this channel, ask for work conditions. Remember to calculate the net profit of the reservation you will receive and check all conditions before signing a contract. It is always a good idea to stay in touch with your competition. That way you can exchange the information and ask their opinion about certain channels.

Corporate business
From the data from China, we can see that the corporate travel segment was the first one to recover. Make sure you have a targeted offer for this type of guests and you can reach them on suitable channels. Use the time to negotiate the contract with the GDS if you were not present there before (check the connections available at the integration list).
Some of the traditional online channels you work with can offer you as well the special program for Business guests. Being presented in the list of the hotels recommended for business trips can bring you not only higher occupancy when the tourist demand is low but increase your visibility showing your hotel to many people across the world.

Invest in automation
You will not have time for any manual work during the hotel reopening. Make sure your channel manager is sending reservations to the PMS and availability are updated accordingly. This will help you to use the time of your staff more efficiently which will become more important than before.
Implementing the real dynamic pricing is only possible if you do it 24/7. Look for good revenue management systems which are fully automated and can offload you.

We have a special Price Optimizer Revenue Management System helping program where we offer 3 months for free. Learn more below:

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The 8 most common distribution management mistakes

Mar 26, 2020 | Revenue Management

The 8 most common distribution management mistakes

Effective hotel revenue management is all about using its full potential. This requires not only using the properly synchronized software and keeping an eye on competitor offers, but also maintaining best possible relationship with guests and making regular evaluations of sales channels being in use and adjusting their pricing strategy to current state of the market.

If you want to manage booking in your hotel successfully you should remember about avoiding 8 common mistakes described below.

1) Lack of proper software synchronization
Having the proper software in place is today more than crucial. Without using new technology and omnichannel distribution strategy you won’t be able to use the potential of your object to its limit. Remember, though, that all the software you use should be properly connected and synchronized. Lack of channel manager, channel manager not connected to PMS (Property Management System) or booking engine not supported by your technology providers – all that mistakes will cause you lots of problems and make the effective distribution management much more difficult, onerous, time consuming and prone to errors.

2) No structured approach to price lists extension
Booking in advance is still a pattern for a group of foreseeing travelers, so you shouldn’t forget about putting in place not only pricing strategy, but also organized approach for price lists extension. Giving your clients a chance to book a room only for next 2 or 3 months deprives you of a significant portion of potential revenue. In all OTAs you work with prices should be available for at least next 12 months.

3) Improper restriction management
If it comes to managing OTAs you should also learn how to properly work with restrictions. You can set restrictions on a general level in any OTA you work with or apply them on a daily level using your channel manager – usually a good channel manager gives you much more options and takes your restriction management to a higher level. So where is the risk here for your hotel? In general using restrictions may improve revenue of your hotel, but there is one condition – you have to use them wisely. Improper restrictions management leads to a situation when your property is available to book in OTAs only during certain periods making your property less visible to potential bookers. You need to learn how to use minimum / maximum stay restrictions, when to close particular OTA and how effectively use CTA (Closed to Arrival) and CTD (Closed to Departure) restrictions, otherwise your object may become unbookable on too many days what in return will reflect on your revenues.

4) Overwriting data in OTAs manually
Thanks to investing in technology and creating powerful and perfectly synchronized software infrastructure you can now automate huge part of reception duties. This results not only in significant savings for your hotel, but also better and more efficient booking management. Once you connected all channels to your channel manager, remember to avoid overwriting data in OTAs manually. Why is this so crucial? Any manual input reduces data consistency which in consequence can lead to lower sales or in extreme cases even no sales.

5) Opening all dates for booking without revenue management analysis
Hotel revenue management is all about optimization and understanding how the supply and demand forces work. The common mistake here is to open all dates for booking without prior revenue management analysis. This mistake may result in selling off the most attractive dates too quickly, what in other words means you will lose a chance to optimize revenues for your hotel for the most profitable periods during the year. If you earn mainly during the high season and your hotel occupancy remains low during the remaining months, you should be particularly careful in this regard – possible mistake is yours “to be or not to be” in the business.

6) Group reservations mismanagement
Do you have a lot of group reservations? Admittedly they are not always highly profitable, but thanks to them you can quickly raise your occupancy rate. On the other hand in case of late cancellation your potential loss can be significant, thus remember to have a precise procedure how to deal with group bookings, secure payments and negotiate sufficient cancellation deadlines. Because of improper management of group reservations many hotels are not using the full potential other channels and revenue sources. Nowadays you can even use software to assess revenue from group bookings and help you with group bookings pricing.

7) Lack of yearly OTA performance review
Already having technology in place, OTAs mix added to your channel manager, but your revenue still stays at the same level? Instead of adding another bunch of OTAs try to reach current channels fullest potential first. Start with an audit and figure out what is the performance of each channel and what are the barriers to earn even more revenue there. Locked accounts, outdated contracts or low quality content – all these issues are potentially decreasing the number of bookings in your hotel. Keep in mind that quality matters . It is better to invest your time in boosting already performing channels first and then move on to market research and look for new potential sources of revenue.

8) Strict approach to overbooking can end up with lower revenue
Dealing with overbooking is always a challenge, but proper overbooking strategy may help you generate more revenue. Dive into statistics, learn your cancellation ratio and get to know your customers behaviour patterns. All this will help you in building overbooking strategy that will work for you. Secure strong relationships with neighbouring hotels in case you need to find alternative accommodation from time to time for your customers. Not only overbooking strategy that matters but also detailed procedures securing guests comfort when there is no room left. The common mistake here might be putting too much focus on avoiding overbooking which results in closing distribution too quickly and losing many potential bookings.

Price strategies that support increase in revenues

Mar 3, 2020 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

Price strategies that support increase in revenues

Proper implementation of a price strategy is of fundamental relevance for each type of property, regardless of the size. A good price strategy is the key to success defined as the acquisitions of the prognosed number of reservations and achieving the optimal amount of revenue as a result.

Creating a price strategy brings properties many benefits in the form of generated revenue and laying the foundations for further development of business. It also helps in strengthening reputation and provides for the determination of long-term sources of income and has an impact on the return on investments indices, so important for capital investors.

Building a coherent price strategy for your property requires in-depth market research to perform segmentation of customers and defining the level of rates which the customer is able to accept, as well as understanding the consumer’s thinking patterns and securing a competitive edge.

Price strategies in revenue management

Every price strategy should include the following elements: prognosis, segmentation and market position.

Prognosis

Before making any price decisions, you should make a forecast to find out exactly where your customers come from and how much they will be willing to pay for the offered services. The ability to predict demand helps in making strategic price decisions. A correct prognosis based on market trends and results from recent years can also be helpful during the process of adjusting prices and the scope of implemented promotions. It also provides a clear picture of the increase in future bookings, enabling you to make the necessary adjustments when the forecast does not match your revenues.

Segmentation

Understanding the concept of customer segmentation allows you to create an accurate segmentation of customers for your property and define the prices which will be attractive to each segment.

Customer expectations within the defined segments vary significantly, therefore rates will also differ. Proper distribution of potential customers can bring many benefits in the area of marketing and distribution. Considering individual segments, we can better adjust rates and specify corporate, group or lowest price customers.

Market position

Knowledge about the position of your facility in relation to the competition is crucial when determining the price for a room. Establishing competitive prices must take into account the division into room categories, the range of services within the offered rate, and the type of rates used – such as non-refundable or refundable under certain conditions.

Implementing a price strategy

Channel manager features a number of functions that will make the revenue manager’s work more effective. A properly selected tool, correct configuration and maximum utilisation of all channel manager functions enables automatic preparation and implementation of a pricing strategy.

Controlling price levels depending on market circumstances supports the implementation of the property’s price strategy. Price grids permit the application and modification of previously defined prices at any time. It is a very advanced form of price management in the channel manager. Price grids offer maximum flexibility when building your pricing strategy.

In YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager you can use up to 30 different price grids in each season. Channel Manager also permits cooperation with the revenue rules module, enabling the creation of complex distribution rules based on the current occupancy ratio and consisting in closing selected channels or automatically changing prices by a percentage or value. This solution allows your facility to get reservations only from its own website.

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Price management: the key when selecting hotel technology

Nov 15, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

Price management: the key when selecting hotel technology

Price management in PMS and Channel Manager: Why is it a key factor when selecting the right solution for your facility while entering 2020

by Paweł Rytel

Effective hotel revenue management is a challenge hotels all over the world are currently trying to meet. It is a given that, as it is in the case of distribution issues, issues with revenue optimization can only be solved by the use of modern IT technologies. They provide fantastic flexibility and nearly completely automate the entire process. But a precondition to achieve this effect is to organise the system infrastructure accordingly.

It might seem that, from the perspective of a hotel manager, the greatest challenge in today’s world is to tame the multi-channel distribution. While constantly growing online sales translate into occupancy levels, booking incoming from multiple sources, their modifications or cancellations can cause some serious problems to the reception staff. Tackling these challenges without well-integrated and properly suited tools is near to impossible, and most definitely not effective. Bearing in mind the above, many hoteliers invest nowadays into modern IT infrastructure built around a central Property Management System. If well coupled with Channel Manager and Revenue Management System, it facilitates smooth distribution and automates the tasks of the reception staff. While most recent PMSs redefine the sales processes for hotel services and revolutionize the functioning of hotel front desk, they lack extensive modules for hotel revenue management. Importantly, this exact issue is currently considered to be the main challenge and key point of attention in the industry.

How do hotels optimize their revenue?

In the recent years, hotel revenue management has become a common subject of discussions and meetings. Various techniques to maximize revenue are being applied by a growing number of hotels – both chains and small, private facilities. Using dynamic rate strategies in today’s reality works for the benefit of a facility. Why is that? Today, using pricing policy that can be seen as disconnected from market reality is more difficult than ever before. In the times of universal access to the internet and constantly growing awareness on the part of the customers, access to the information on rooms prices in multiple facilities at the same time has also become universal. On one hand, high transparency helps in customers’ decision-making, on the other, it dooms hoteliers to failure if they apply pricing policies essentially different to the market tendencies, and not necessarily too high, but often simply too low prices. In the view of the above, room prices can work both as a trigger to hotel’s financial problems and a factor of their competitive advantage resulting in dynamic rise in hotel’s revenue.

Dynamic pricing strategies, i.e. strategies that forecast the changes to the price in time, based on clashing supply and demand factors and a well-planned budget and revenue segmentation are currently used by vast majority of hoteliers. Yet, it is still not uncommon for facilities to have fixed price lists or follow other competitive facilities. This goes for both independent facilities and small chains. In principle, large and recognized hotel chains apply extensive revenue management strategies and supply-dependant rates. To oversimplify, during periods of higher demand on hotel rooms (summer season, holidays, big events) they apply higher rates and source customers from more affordable sales channels. Here the most luxurious facilities are an exception to the rule, a phenomenon well illustrated by the Veblen effect. In their case higher demand can trigger higher rates, yet hotels of this kind are rare.

How are dynamic pricing strategies implemented in hotel industry? There are many possible ways and mostly the choice is up to the facility manager. Quantity-based strategy assumes the sales of same-type rooms at rates dependant on occupancy levels in the facility. This means that the first group of rooms is sold at prices different to the later groups. Similar strategies are applied in the aviation industry. Yet, there are many more factors shaping the final price for a room and including them all into the pricing strategy can pose a substantial challenge. The seasonal character of the industry or the growing interest in hotel’s offer in case of mass events taking place in the area or price dependency on the length of stay are some of them. Maximizing hotel revenue is a head-scratcher for hotel-manager due to the discussed reasons, as well as the fact that very often room rates should be updated as often as a few times a day.

To maximize profit, hoteliers need to base their decisions on accurate forecasts and reach out for advanced and maximally automated tools to effectively manage pricing strategies. When considering whether to implement such a tool, you need to analyze the prospects for your current system infrastructure, in particular, the property management system and central booking systems. Modern PMSs are an everyday work tool in the industry and offer a wide range of advanced functionalities. However, complicated pricing management is normally done by tools such as Channel Manager and Revenue Management System. In truth, it is making the right choice and integrating the systems properly that can truly open your way to success.

Why should I get YieldPlanet solutions?

YieldPlanet Channel Manager is an exceptionally fast and flexible tool facilitating smooth online distribution to a few or a few dozens of channels at the same time. This solution helps you to effectively manage rates depending on the number of guests per room, ready-made price lists allowing for an immediate rates update in OTA channels and building complex price plans calculated with the use of set formulas.

All these features and the option to create as many as a few dozens of price lists and change them freely, make the maximizing of hotel revenue much easier and help automate it to a high degree. The system also allows for unlimited differentiation of rates and allotments sent to OTA channels, which, in turn, enables the testing of independent pricing strategies in individual channels and promoting those that bring you the highest profit.

To move hotel revenue management to an even higher level, you might want to consider combining your Channel Manager with a Revenue Management System. Particularly vital in the context of varying customer behaviours, who book their rooms with a shorter advance every year, as a result of which hotels receive most bookings just moments before the day “0”. In the light of the above, room pricing should be subject to a systemic solutions.

The solutions offered by YieldPlant further expand previously discussed functionalities by automated rate management, with regard to many vital factors, such as seasonal character, back data, segments or conferences and all kinds of other events. Another huge advantage is the automated rates and availability management for every channel individually, as well as the option to flexibly groups rooms for sale. All this results in a substantial increase in the likelihood to boost the revenue and better use the potential of the facility.

Are you looking for a solution that will help you manage your rates? Contact us to learn more about YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager. 

Are you searching for a specialized tool for revenue management? YieldPlanet’s Price Optimizer will come to help.

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Optimizing rates and availability – the strategy for 2019/20

Oct 10, 2019 | Revenue Management

Optimizing rates and availability – the strategy for 2019/20

Already today, distribution strategies based on maximizing the number of sales channels require additional effort and specialized tools. In the times of extremely competitive market environment, increasingly digitalised reality, growing role of OTAs and decreasing number of direct reservations, searching for new ways to support your business becomes an imperative. How to effectively manage rate and availability optimizing in sales channels? Why in 2019/20 you should choose rate and availability optimizing strategy instead of simply maximizing the number of sales channels? How to automate the process?

Effective revenue management is a buzzword, a hot topic in the industry and a subject of interest of every hotel manager. Only a few years ago, in a simpler reality, it was enough to update your rates every once in a while to, more or less effectively, influence your potential guests’ choices. Everything changed when OTAs come came into play as they allowed for quick and incredibly effective comparison of a number of competing hotel offers. On one hand, growing revenue from internet sales was a new advantage for hoteliers as it translated into substantial increase in interest in their offer and, subsequently, increase in booking numbers. On the other, however, it posed a challenge both in economic and organizational sense.

Digital revolution led to an enormous increase in the significance of internet sales channels for hospitality industry and triggered the need to restructure existing distribution strategies and invest into modern system infrastructure to implement new strategies. Integration with leading OTAs was therefore the first step in the process. It soon brought about a constantly growing share of online bookings and, at the same time, growing client acquisition cost. Soon other, less mainstream OTAs followed, providing the access to completely new while well-profiled client groups. As the number of online distribution channels grew, modifying current offers of individual OTAs and updating room availability information became a challenge. Yet, solutions that facilitated the implementation of distribution strategies and automated the process came to help. Channel manager is one of these solutions.

Maximizing vs. optimizing the number of distribution channels

As soon as a tool providing support on a number of levels was introduced in the hospitality industry, hotel managers would shift their focus to expanding the catalogue of online services they cooperated with by new OTAs to fight their way in increasingly competitive market. Only a few years ago, this approach translated into profit, today turning to this scenario is much less probable to lead to success. This state of affairs was brought about by the progressing concentration on the OTAs market and appearance of Airbnb services that permanently changed the hospitality industry landscape all over the globe. The role of the so called “sharing economy” is growing, proof of which is the fact that even leading OTAs expanded their offer by private apartments. Booking.com included 1,744,000 facilities (as of December 2018) alternative to hotels and guest houses into its offers to effectively compete with Airbnb. The number of traditional accommodation facilities available in the giant’s catalogue towards the end of the last year was as low as 436,000. Developments on the market and an increasingly challenging situation for hotel facilities are well illustrated by the dynamics in the increase of the number of facilities in particular categories. Taking the example of Boooking.com, the increase equals 47% for alternative facilities and only 10% for hotels. But to think that hotels are a lost cause is false. Hoteliers are well aware of the competition staged by the alternative facilities. While the legal regulations for the alternative accommodation used to be much milder than in the case of traditional hotels, this situation has been slowly changing and the sharing economy is subjected to increasingly restrictive rules. Moreover, revenue management in such facilities is much more difficult. Hotels normally have better analytics tools at their disposal and make substantial investments into business management tools.

Taken into consideration developments on the market, as well as the growing dominance of a few leading OTAs already today we should concentrate on designing a new, individualised approach to offer management in every channel. Skilful rate and availability optimization in key OTAs supported by advanced analytics can prove to be the key to success and an alternative for endlessly adding new sales channels or developing own booking engine on the hotel website, as it may turn out to be costly and not always as effective as external channels. According to statistics, popularity of the leading OTAs is so huge that it currently often substitutes hotel brands. This concentration on the OTAs market is illustrated by AHLA report (American Hotel and Lodging Association) – “Impact of OTA Bias and Consolidation on Consumers” of 2017, according to which Expedia and Priceline own as much as 95% of shares in the OTA market. On top of that, the giants built a very strong bond with the travellers which makes the competition, particularly for smaller facilities, truly arduous.

As confirmed by studies and market reports, this dominance is only going to strengthen. Online Travel Market Report prepared by Allied Market Research analysts in 2015 forecast growth dynamics of 11.1% annually and reaching the value of USD 1,091 billion in 2022. Last year’s report by Zion Market Research “Online Travel Booking Market” estimated the value of the market in 2017 at 765 billion and forecast its growth to 1,955 billion in 2026, which indicates towards the compound annual growth rate at 12.1%. We can therefore assume that OTAs strengthen their position and both bigger budget and wit will be necessary to acquire direct reservations via internet websites.

Channel Manager and RMS as competitive advantage factor

If we take a closer look at hotels’ current distribution strategies, as well steps they take in the context of sales, it will be easy to observe their interest in rates differentiation and increasingly more common tendency to adopt strategies customized to particular channels. Yet, it comes as a surprise that it is still most often hotel chains that reach out for and implement modern systems supporting revenue optimization (RMS). Vast majority of hotels still relies on alternative solutions, including hugely popular spreadsheets. While they allow the most vital calculations, it is not possible to quickly transfer and implement the rate policies for particular channels calculated with the use of spreadsheets into cooperating OTA platforms. This is only one of many reasons to create an adequate system infrastructure already today and move hotel revenue management to a whole new level.

Where to start? Indisputably, examining the option to connect Property Management System to the Channel Manager and Revenue Management System is the best starting point. How can they help to implement effective distribution strategy and on-going hotel revenue optimization?

Channel Manager by YieldPlanet offers advanced rate and availability management features, thereby allowing you to create independent strategies for particular sales channels (OTAs). This way it effectively promotes those platforms that generate the most profit – that is, high revenue, but not a high occupancy rate. Advanced analytics facilitates quick understanding, how particular OTAs are different – some excel at providing bookings well in advance, other are “specialised” in last-minute bookings. Once you have this kind of information, you can promote accommodation options that can be most profitable for the hotel at a given moment in time. It wouldn’t be possible without individualised rate plans and availability management on the level of each individual channel. Another advantage of YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is the broad range of possibilities to define rules governing rates and availability differentiation (so called ‘revenue rules’) as well as non-conflicting data transferred from PMSs and individually prepared rate lists and varied availability for individual channels.

Price Optimizer, in turn, offers a completely new approach to revenue maximization. Price Optimizer by YieldPlanet was created to automate any selected distribution strategy through a dynamic and maximally automated room pricing mechanisms. This tool can not only subject back data for analysis, forecast future occupancy and revenue, but it also offers extended analytics features which, if used by an experienced hotel manager, can translate into considerable business benefits. The greatest advantage of Price Optimizer is its undisputable flexibility thanks to which every facility can adjust PO to its specific needs. Price Optimizer allows you to freely define rules limiting rooms availability, close rate plans and modify restrictions depending on any selected combination of seasons, channels, rate plans, days of the week or room types. All this in near-real time based on the most recent available data.

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Hotel trends: what not to miss in 2019/2020

Aug 22, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

Hotel trends: what not to miss in 2019/2020

Bookassist

For the hotel industry autumn is a time to reflect on marketing plans for the coming year. It is a particularly good time to analyse trends. Looking forward, we should not forget that there is little sense in trying out novelties before we have implemented universal solutions that are popular today. The surge of innovative online tools focuses on direct bookings and increasing margins. Before taking a new course, it is worth to focus on optimising operations that are within our reach today and secure basic tools.

Millennials and Generation Z

The purchasing power currently belongs to Millennials and Generation Z, who will represent almost 60% of global workforce in 2020. Millennials are oriented on experiences and individual activities. They spend 70% more on experiences than on tangible goods. Generation Z is a generation of digital natives who do not know the world before the internet. Always online and up to date, they are used to immediate results and instant feedback. Members of Generation Z need fast and uncomplicated solutions since the time they are able to maintain focus is shorter that for people from previous generations.

The message is clear. We live in times dominated by “experience”. Hotels need to remember that it is up to them if they will establish a required relationship with the customer and then strengthen it during the stay. The customer’s experience on site is the reason why hotels have huge advantage over other companies selling their products or services online.

Even faster mobile Internet

Data transmission speed will soon be 10 to 20 times faster than currently available. 5G network will have a significant impact on the mobile users’ behaviour and expectations. Video files and augmented or virtual reality will be immediately available to the user. This has to lead to radical changes in the process of searching for bookings as users will be able to visualise themselves in the room which they plan to book, opposed to only looking at pictures and exploring the property using a virtual tour.

The mobile first strategy will irreversibly replace the approach expressed in the “mobile version also available” message. New Google crawling method prioritises hotels that invest in the mobile first strategy and severely punishes hotels that neglect mobile users. No hotel can afford to ignore the mobile sphere. OTA platforms are eager to take over bookings at the hotels which are not implementing the mobile first strategy.

Bookassist’s statistics prove that almost 60% of the hotel website traffic is generated by mobile devices (UK and Ireland). There was also a surge in mobile transactions observed in recent years. Revenues are still dominated by desktop channels, however, revenues from mobile channels are growing rapidly. We should remember that the path to purchase does not always start on the computer and the customer journey consists of at least several steps. Failure to optimise in terms of mobile channels is a risk that no one should be willing to take.

Augmented and virtual reality

The possibilities of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to grow with the spread of 5G network. VR requires additional technologies, such as VR headphones. AR involves providing additional digital components accessible via smartphone. For practical reasons, hoteliers should turn to the augmented reality.

Some hotels already use AR to improve the attractiveness of their folders. Maps with the AR function offer the possibility to check out hotel’s surroundings. Some hotels use AR also to make the hotel itself more attractive. This is a great chance to improve guest experience before and during the stay.

Video dominance

Video is definitely the favourite format for Millennials and Generation Z. People currently prefer to watch than read, especially on mobile devices. It is worth to remember that YouTube is now the second largest search engine in terms of volume. Video content is not limited to YouTube – Facebook averages 8 billion views of video content daily. With the advent of 5G era this trend will gain even bigger importance.

Thinking forward, hotels need to invest in attractive, informative video content and ads. Google estimates that by 2021 video content will account for 80% of used media. Video materials and ads are more expensive but soon the cost of not having them will be even bigger.

Chatbots and artificial intelligence

Chatbots are the most widespread form of artificial intelligence. Many hotels have live chats on their website, however, thanks to automation and short response times, chatbots are more practical and reduce strain on employees. Chatbot is used for solving simple issues and respond via a messenger to questions frequently asked by the customer who is visiting the hotel website. The time saved thanks to this tool can be used by the employee to focus on an individual approach to the customer.

Intelligent chatbots feature a machine learning function. This means that they use knowledge acquired in previous interactions with customers to reply to inquiries. Most chatbots use text communication but voice input will soon be very common.

When deciding on chatbot service, it is worth to consider the possibility to integrate it with a booking search engine to share rates and availability with customers. Bookassist offers such combination in the Zoé chatbot by Colossal Factory. Other key characteristics of a chatbot:

·        Possibility to „train” the chatbot by adding personalised questions and answers

·        Multilingualism

·        Self-learning function through machine learning – increasing chatbot’s expertise

·        Availability on all devices

·        Option to connect with live chat

·        Option to call back or continue the chat if an answer is not readily available

·        Most importantly, the ease of providing information that helps to make a booking

Voice assistants (DVA)

We are observing a surge in the popularity of voice assistants, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri or Microsoft Cortana. Hotels also increasingly use DVA to make their guests’ stay more enjoyable.

Voice assistants and the Internet of things are designed to improve the comfort of stay at the hotel. Hotel guests can use voice input to adapt room facilities to their needs, for example to control lightening or temperature. Voice commands are also useful for setting the alarm clock, playing favourite music, ordering meals or calling housekeeping, as well as for reporting shortcomings. Hyper-personalisation of services is a sign of our times.

AI robots with voice recognition function are already being used at hotels, for example, in the Yotel chain. They are used to welcome guests, answer simple questions or order room service. This is still new today, however, robots will become regular travel companions in the coming years.

Voice search

The statistics are surprising. Comscore studies show that by 2020 more than half of the searches will be conducted via voice. Mediapos estimates that by 2020 around 30% of all searches will be done without a screen. The age of searching via text is slowly fading into oblivion.

Focusing on voice search has to entail changes in the e-marketing approach. SEO strategy and content management have to be compatible with it. It is necessary to assess the character of possible inquiries. Will the user ask general questions since he is at the beginning of his path to purchase, or will he ask questions suggesting that he is ready to book? Does the website content facilitate conversation and provide accurate and clear answers?

Well edited FAQ site is a good step towards optimisation in terms of voice search. It is also worth to add schema validators to show content in Google snippets, customise My Business website and improve page load time as well as its mobile user-friendliness.

Visual search

Visual search is not new, however, it gains attention especially since the introduction of Pinterest Lens and Google Lens tools. Users hold their smartphone to a given item/object and in this way get the information or search for images in Google by clicking on the camera icon in the search window.

In response to this trend, hotels need to examine their visual content. Key aspects include high quality materials, stirring imagination, relative uniqueness, consistent style on different platforms and presence on the most important sites, such as Instagram and Pinterest.

You need to be a visual content creator and manager at the same time. You need to follow Instagram and Pinterest, share interesting pictures related to the property and add them to your website, with the authors’ consent.

There are many ways to appear in visual searches. For example, it is worth to add attractive pictures of tourist attractions in the surroundings to reach tourists planning future trips.

Discovering new markets – China

The number of Chinese tourists in Europe grew by 65% in the first half of 2017! Number of visas issued to the Chinese for visiting Europe amounted to 2.5 million, while 5 years earlier it was only 1.2 million.

Before you take on Chinese tourists as your target, remember that they rarely travel alone and their trips are organised by Chinese intermediaries.

You do not need to make big investments to reach the Chinese market. For example, Wego platform has decent visibility in China and can be accessed through the Bookassist Meta Search service. As good results are achieved, you can experiment with other portals and further engage in advertising in China and localising your content for this market.

Biometric technology

Biometric technology and new methods of recognition are gaining interest in the hotel industry. They allow hotels to improve quality of their guest service and effectively customise offered services. Main tools used by hotels include face recognition, fingerprint recognition and retinal scanning.

Hotels value the promptness and discretion of such facilities as opening rooms with a fingerprint scan or face recognition check-in. Biometric technology may become an indispensable hotel component in the near future.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a secure distributed database used to register modifications of data and performed transactions. It is a register in which each block of data is secured and transactions are added to time-stamped transaction journal with all information and record of changes. Transactions linked into block chains are irreversible. The system is very secure; it is virtually impossible to break the blockchain network.

Blockchain technology is in its infant stages in the mass market but it is expected to be used in the hotel sector in the future. For example, the travel industry is based mostly on the transfer of data between companies. Blockchain improves protection of customer data which in turn has a positive impact on the travel experience and customers’ trust when it comes to sharing personal data.

It all depends on how this technology will be taken on by the market. The system is not free and it does not speed up transactions. It can only be useful to different industries, including the hotel industry, when it is used more commonly.

From new technologies to new measurements

Traditional method of calculating return on investments for each medium individually is no longer reliable as it only shows the result for a single channel and does not consider its impact on the overall success. We suggest that you analyse the total income increase to assess the impact of all paid portals.

There are many different attribution models available, however, we need to have a good understanding of attribution before we decide on the multichannel model. This can be explained with a simple analogy. When a football player scores a goal, does he get 100% credit or does the defender who passed the ball to the midfielder who then passed it to the striker share the credit with him? The first answer would suggest that other players are redundant, which of course is not true. Thus, if we translate it into marketing, there are no grounds to discard assisting platforms and focus only on the campaign that the customer clicked on last.

Assessing the value of each channel is not easy, but tools such as Google Analytics significantly improved the system of reporting assisted conversion and attribution. Those reports should be the starting point for any calculations.

Summary

Today we can observe much more technological advances than at any other time in history. We gain more possibilities every year. However, what still matters the most is the optimization of current actions. Mobile channels should remain a priority. Most of the new tools are focused on mobile channels, thus, we have to keep up to date, continuously improve our property’s online presence and only then gradually implement new solutions.

How does overbooking influence hotel revenue?

Aug 16, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

How does overbooking influence hotel revenue?

Booking cancellations and no-shows are common phenomena throughout the hospitality industry. While they disrupt normal functioning of a hotel, they also afford an excellent opportunity to generate additional income. Unfortunately, using this opportunity to your advantage is harder than it seems – you need to be able to identify certain regularities, trends and patterns in guests’ booking behaviours. You will also need to forecast such trends and behaviours with precise accuracy based on available data. Yet, the potential benefits for the hotel may prove big enough to be worth the risk. How to make extra revenue and turn overbooking into success? How to create an effective overbooking strategy?

Mission: optimization

Generally speaking, the most fundamental task for a person in charge of hotel’s revenue, that is executive director or revenue manager, is to take all possible actions aimed to maximise yield for the hotel owner. It takes well-planned strategies and bold improvised decisions on many levels to achieve this challenging aim. Broadly understood optimising and managing hotel revenue, including mapping out the overbooking strategy, is a good example of a hotel management field that requires an extensive experience, industry knowledge as well as up-to-date advanced analyses and prognoses. Properly defined revenue management strategy can boost hotel’s financial results and sustain clients’ loyalty and satisfaction on a stable level.

In the recent years issues concerned with revenue management and overbooking have been broadly discussed. While a few years ago hotels would mostly shape their own price policy and continuously adjust it to the changing market, today this process is largely automated. This was achieved through including Revenue Management Systems into standard hotel system architecture consisting of PMS, Booking Engine and Channel Manager. Yet it’s wrong to assume that investing in innovative technological solutions will be an answer to all problems. While Revenue Management Systems facilitate the work of both reception and management staff, their operation needs to be continuously controlled, optimized and adjusted to the changing environment and individual business objectives.

Cancelled bookings and overbooking

In principle, hotel policy is to avoid confirming more rooms than the available capacity of a hotel at a certain time, yet hotels often take the risk of overbooking and confirm more reservations than they can in fact accommodate. Why is that? The answer is simple – overbooking is probably the most efficient way of boosting hotel’s financial results. Booking cancellations happen in every hotel, to a greater or lesser extent. If done early enough, chances to sell the room again are fairly big. The situation is more complicated if a client decides to cancel their reservation last-minute. Situations like this one are not uncommon. On one hand, hotels accept a certain amount of reservations not guaranteed with advance payments, business travellers, on the other hand, happen to change their plans, while tourists can fall victims to flight delays or other chance events. Hoteliers are also well acquainted with the type of customers who do not show up despite having booked and paid the room.

Taking the above factors into consideration, it is clear that achieving 100% occupancy and, consequently, using full economic potential of the hotel is virtually impossible. To reduce revenue loss, hoteliers increasingly decide to implement overbooking strategies in their establishments – it means that some of the rooms are sold twice as it is calculated that otherwise the rooms would remain unused due to booking cancellations and no-show guests. The challenge here is to implement a strategy that would, on one hand, boost the hotel profitability as expected without compromising guest satisfaction on the other. Unsurprisingly, it is not an easy task. Tourism industry tends to be capricious and tightly correlated with weather conditions, economy and chance events that can turn long-traced tendencies upside down. All this makes estimating cancellation factors and no-shows all the more difficult and complex. What’s worse, defining separate factors for different types of rooms or time remaining until arrival is recommended to obtain possibly accurate data. Estimates accuracy plays a vital role in the process and it’s dependent, first and foremost, on the amount and quality of back data – preferably collected in a central property management system (PMS). Based on this data it is possible to forecast the number of booking cancellations, no-shows, understays or stayovers.

Auto-replenishment

Accurate factor estimates are a key to success only in theory. Experience shows clearly that, to implement overbooking strategy, we need to assume a broader perspective on the situation. Nowadays hospitality services are sold through a range of channels, directly (through reception staff, call centres and hotel booking systems), as well as via multiple OTAs. The latter sales channel is guilty of complicating our task, as many OTA services have designed and implemented a series of tools allowing for active handling of the cancelled reservations. One of the most common tools is the auto-replenishment. In a fully unattended, automated way it puts rooms vacated due to booking cancellations back up for sale. According to Booking.com statistics, as many as 73% of such rooms are successfully sold again, thus having a positive impact on the hotel’s financial results, yet it seriously inhibits effective implementation of the overbooking strategy.

How to solve this problem? Not all repeated bookings done via OTAs are welcome at a certain moment but have to be accepted due to certain agreements in the cooperation terms. To avoid repeated booking you can raise the price of the room or limit the demand on the room otherwise – e.g. setting MinLOS to 3-5 days. Taking such action should bring the expected result, yet it requires higher staff involvement. It would be much more reasonable to implement solutions bringing the same effect with minimum staff involvement. We will discuss it further in the text.

Optimal system infrastructure vs overbooking

A precondition for an efficient and smooth operation of a hotel is the automation of its repeatable processes with technological solutions available on the market. It is no different in the case of overbooking as it can be effectively managed via the products offered by YieldPlanet.

Our Channel Manager uses centralised allotment to continuously implement overbooking strategy, at the same time avoiding the situation when some guests need to be walked to another establishment. This system allows for overselling the hotel capacity, yet it preserves the auto-replenishment blocking rule which means that rooms vacated through booking cancellation are not put up for sale again. Revenue rules are another new function to do the overbookings in a controlled manner and manage them effectively. You can execute this strategy by differentiating room availability and prices in various channels. It is vital that the prices are high enough – in the worst case scenario the staff will be able to walk the guests to nearby establishments of the same or higher category without paying extra costs. At this point it is worth pointing out that if you decide to start implementing overbooking strategy in your property, you need to have detailed procedures for situation when you need to walk your guests. This includes a list of trusted hotels that will accept your guests.

Therefore, you might want to consider adding an advanced Revenue Management System to your hotel system architecture – e.g. YieldPlanet’s Price Optimizer. RMS will further automate auto-replenishment avoidance process in individual OTAs through adequate price or MinLOS manipulations, as described earlier in the text. As the burden of manually modifying room offer parameters will be taken off of the revenue manager, they can gain save a significant amount of time to optimize currently applied strategies, perform in-depth analyses of customer behaviour patterns and search for new ways of boosting the property profitability.

Google Hotels – a new tool for hotel marketing

Aug 1, 2019 | Revenue Management

Google Hotels – a new tool for hotel marketing

There are many different models of working with Google for hoteliers to promote their property. You can choose the most common way of promotion – the Google Ads. You pay and a link to your hotel’s website appears directly in the sponsored links in the browser. However, now Google offers you a possibility to appear on a widget designed especially for hotels – the Google Hotels. What exactly is it and what do you have to do to get there?

Google Hotels is part of Google Travel – a platform which integrates all of the tools which help a traveler book their trips. Initially, Google had a Trips mobile app and Google Flights. Lately, these services were spread to include also and the forementioned hotel search engine and grouped as part of one common platform. Imagine that you are planning a trip to Barcelona and you are looking for a hotel. If you put “hotels in Barcelona” in your browser, this is what you will see.

The link marked as “Ad” is AdWords. Then, what you will see in the window between AdWords and organic results is the Google Hotels widget. It allows your potential guests to compare prices from various sites (hotel’s own sites, OTAs, etc.) in one place, in real time, without leaving Google.

If you click on a particular hotel, you will land on a page on which you will be able to compare the offers from different distribution channels, including the hotel’s own website.

In the “Check availability” or ‘Compare prices’ box, you can see various links. They take you directly to Booking.com, Trip.com (or any other OTA that has a paid campaign active), as well as the hotel’s own website. However, if you have activated the ‘Book on Google’ option on your property, the hotel will be available to be booked without leaving Google. If it is active, you will see another box. In this particular case, it has a “Select a room” nametag, but it can also show OTAs’ offers for your property.

When you click on a room which you have selected, you will see a Google page on which you will be asked to confirm your room choice, give the guest’s personal and contact details and credit card number.

The last stage will be the booking confirmation.

The advantages for the client should be clear by now. What are the advantages for a hotel? If the booker is here, then it means they are further in the process of purchase than most clients who click on the AdWords link. Since they are lower in the sales funnel, then we may assume that these clicks will have a higher conversion than it is in the case of the clicks you get from conventional AdWords.

How to appear on the list

First of all, you need to have an active Google My Business Account.

The main driver for Google to position hotels up or down is Success (measured in CTR & profits), which can be improved with customer/audience affinity. That means, getting a higher position in a rank is not simply a matter of bidding – your position basically depends on whether your website gives Google a high value in terms of the content presented, gives the potential guests good user experience and competitive offer. The demand for the hotel, given its location, quality, reviews and other factors matter, too. All of these effect in the traffic generated on the website by the audience who visits it. If the quality of content is poor or not many people visit your website – you will have to pay to raise your position in the rank. Therefore, you need your Google Ad account to be active, to be ready to improve your position. If you don’t pay, you will still appear in the ranking, but this will weaken your position.

One thing is clear: if the hotel direct sales is not present here, then it is losing many bookings, as – if the offers are competitive – it has the highest probability to get the business.

Business models & how much it costs

There are three business models that will lead you to be listed:

CPC – you pay for each click on your link

You pay a commission fee whenever a booking has been made

You pay a commission fee from each stay (charged after the guest’s check-out) – this way you only pay for the reservations which effected in a stay; you don’t pay for the no-stay. The commission is 10%

Bottom line

In the times when competition is tough, using Book on Google might be a good way for hoteliers to get more bookings.

Read our blog to keep up to date with the recent news from the industry.

Consortia as a source of corporate bookings

Jul 19, 2019 | Revenue Management, Revenue Strategy

Consortia as a source of corporate bookings

GDS distribution is the entry point to worldwide corporate travelers. The GDS feed most consortia, providing a major source of business for hotels that capture strong corporate demand. How to join TMC & Consortia hotel programs to make the most of your online channel distribution?

There are various channels a hotel should be aware of existing when it wants to have access to corporate reservations. The most important one is the GDS (Global Distribution system). GDS distribution is undoubtedly the entry point to worldwide corporate travelers who book accommodates for their professional travel through travel agents or their corporate self-booking tool (connected to GDS). This makes GDS an opportunity to reach an attractive segment of clients.

The GDS feed most consortia, providing a major source of business for hotels that capture strong
corporate demand. A Consortium is an organization consisting of independent travel agents and agencies joined together to increase their buying power, commissions, and amenities they are able to provide clients worldwide. In many cases, these agents switch consortium, consolidate or are acquired ongoing, or associate with several consortia, the main goal being a larger reach of hotels. Some of the main international consortia are ABC,WIN Global Travel Network, American Express, BCD, CCRA, Carlson Wagonlit, Radius, and Thor. A broad list of the most powerful travel agencies is available here.

Consortia rates
In exchange for offering better rates and commission to the TMC’s & Consortia, hotels receive listings under their private GDS rate code, website, and intranet for additional exposure to all member agents. Viewership of Consortia rates in the GDS is restricted – the rate is not available to general public and may be booked only when you enter the Consortia rate code. This means that if an agent searches for hotels in your city under the Consortia rate code and your hotel is not listed with the Consortia, your hotel will not show up in these search results.

Why join consortia & TMC programs?
Consortia will help you access new clients, drive growth, ADR, occupancy and incremental sales. TMC & Consortia will give you enhanced exposure to booking agents and their clients globally, all year round.

By joining TMC & Consortia hotel programs, your product is distributed to a balanced mix of on average 80% corporate and 20% leisure agencies, with both weekday and weekend business. You also get access to a variety of additional marketing opportunities to elevate your position and drive incremental business.

Consortia management programs help independent hotels compete for a share of the global business and leisure travel market by marketing preferred rates to qualified travel agents.

TMCs book the consortia rates and corporate rates they have access to, and all public rates.

EXAMPLE: CONSORTIA RATE
An agent part of ABC Global services can book ABC Global Travel rates only if a hotel has signed a contract with ABC Global Services. An agent with CCRA Travel would not be able to book the ABC Global Travel rates.
Travel Management Companies negotiate rates with hotels on behalf of the corporations they represent. This rate is specific to that client and only authorized users can view, access, and book the negotiated rates. Corporations pick the Travel Management Companies they want to handle their travel bookings, and only this TMC has access to the negotiated rates for that corporation.

EXAMPLE: CORPORATE RATE WITH A TMC
Corporation, say, XYZ has a negotiated rate with your hotel. Corporation XYZ has decided to work with American Express Business Travel, so American Express agents can see and book your negotiated rated with Corporation XYZ. An agent at CWT would not be able to book this negotiated rate.

Hoteliers determine the right Consortia & TMC partners to contract with each year. The bidding process has just started, so if you are considering to join, the moment is now. Here is the general Consortia timeline.

General Consortia Timeline:

June 1st – December 31st
• Sign up opens for Consortia services 2020

June 15th – August 30th
• From June 15th: RFP System training & educational sessions
o Invites with dates & times are sent separately
o Online training available all year at sabre University
• July 31st: (Recommended date)
o Hotel to complete their profile data – this is a recommended deadline since hotels cannot complete any Consortia submissions until profile data is 100% completed in the system.
• From August 1st: Consortia RFP training sessions – deep dive
o Invites with dates & times are sent separately
o Online training available all year at sabre University

From July 18th
• Sign up to Consortia Packages
• Individual Program sign up and a la carte sign up – Nexus Launch date is August 1st
• Additional Programs are being launched ongoing until October
• First Consortia submission deadlines are set to August 29th (Late submissions are accepted)

October 1st – December 31st
• Rate extension – ensure your existing consortia rates are extended until 31 March 2020, to avoid missing out on any potential bookings in the beginning of the year
• Rate loading & mapping – hotels are responsible for building and managing rates in the CRS, rates will then be automatically mapped to the GDS

From November 1st
• Sign up opens for 2020 consortia marketing opportunities and event participation

January 1st – February 28th
• Archive or Delete expired rates
• Rate Audits are performed ongoing to ensure rate availability in GDS and remove squatted rates

Read our GDS white paper Why do you need to be on a GDS now? A guide to the GDS market for hoteliers’ to learn more about GDS market.

How to maximize your peak season earnings

Jun 18, 2019 | Revenue Management, Revenue Strategy

How to maximize your peak season earnings

With the high demand that peak season brings to your distribution channels, together with Booking.com we are sharing some tips to show you how your business can benefit. This is how you can attract more guests to your property.

1. Improve your visibility

As simple as it sounds – the first and foremost step to attracting more guests is being seen by more people – that means improving your visibility on distribution channels. Look through the photos and descriptions that you use to make sure they are up-to-date and reflect all of the assets of your property. Structurize the text and try to use the arguments that may be convincing to your target group of guests. Joining special programmes for partners that some OTAs have can also help. Booking.com has a Preferred programme. This move opens new possibilities for your offer to be displayed in attractive placements in the search results, for example. A property which has joined the programme, can get up to 65% more page views and 35% more bookings, according to Booking.com’s statistics. For properties who will not be able to join the programme, there are another ways to make your offer be more visible. Booking.com’s ranking is the order in which available accommodation in guests’ search results is displayed. These results are sorted based on what’s most relevant to guests’ particular preferences, taking into account their past search behaviour, specific market dynamics and properties’ overall performance on the website. This makes it easier to match guests’ needs with the right kind of accommodation, and helps you attract guests who want to book your kind of property. Booking.com uses machine learning to continually evaluate what matters most to guests, which, in turn, helps your property connect with the guest. The number of bookings you receive impacts your overall performance, an that affects your ranking.

2. Boost your conversion

That is again, a content issue. To stand out in Booking.com search results – and increase the number of clicks on your property’s page – you need to have accurate and attractive content. Numbers don’t lie – properties that follow this rule receive up to 18% more bookings than properties with incomplete content. Another way that helps to increase your conversion is to target high-value guests with your offer. Booking.com’s Genius programme helps you secure revenue by connecting you with the most frequent bookers on Booking.com. By offering Genius guests a 10% discount, you’ll get extra visibility and promotion – and potentially increase your bookings by up to 18%. You can also look to attract business guests by offering them a special rate. Business guests are 50% less likely to cancel and 60% more likely to book your property again in future. Additionally, they increase your occupancy on weekdays and tend to spend more than other guests.

3. Reduce your cancellations

Did you know that guests who pay online are four times less likely to cancel or not show up? By allowing last-minute bookings without credit cards you will make last-minute bookers cancel far less. This will simplify their booking process and improve your chances of securing their reservation. Another way to turn cancellations into new bookings is to set a grace period – the time you let your guests change a booking without being charged. As 25% of cancellations happen within 24 hours of the original booking, grace periods help you get your rooms back on sale quickly. This option is possible on Booking.com.

4. More channels, more bookings

Last, but not least: take full advantage of the possibilities your channel manager gives you. Maybe it is time to add some more distribution channels? Take action on your peak season opportunities now!

Consortia – a quick guide for corporate reservations seekers

Jun 12, 2019 | Revenue Management

Consortia – a quick guide for corporate reservations seekers

As explained in the ‘Why do you need to be on a GDS now? A guide to the GDS market for hoteliers’ GDS white paper elaborated by YieldPlanet, diversification of distribution channels is one of the key factors that make your property perform better. Therefore, hoteliers cannot avoid to consider the GDS as one of the tools to increment bookings. GDSes are the way for hotels to connect and conduct business with travel agencies and travel management companies. They deliver some of the most valuable customers for hotels: business travelers, who tend to spend more on premise and pay a higher average daily rate (ADR) than their leisure counterparts.

The GDS feeds most consortia, providing a major source of business for hotels that capture strong corporate demand. Consortia are Associations or Marketing organizations which link together small to medium-sized independent travel agencies to leverage purchasing power and marketing opportunities.

Some of the main international consortia are:

ABC Global Services – leading provider of travel-related products and services to the global travel agency and corporate communities for over 35 years. ABC’s Premier Hotel Program is used by approximately 8,000 agency locations in 67 countries and driving millions of room nights per year. More than 50,000 hotels participate in ABC’s program.
Business mix: 70% corporate and 30% leisure business.

American Express Global Business Travel – an international corporate travel management company (TMC) that provides leading travel solutions, integrated consulting services, proprietary research, and end-to-end meetings and events capabilities. These offerings enable clients to optimize the return on their travel and meetings investments. GBT has operations and network partners in nearly 140 countries worldwide.

BCD Travel – ranked as the Top 3 TMC worldwide. A hotel listed under the BCD rate access codes delivers its product to the point of sale of 6,000 BCD travel counselors in 110 countries and to clients worldwide.
Business mix: 90% corporate, 5% leisure, 5% meetings & incentives.

Carlson Wagonlit – a leading travel management partner to fortune 100 companies. It is used by over 3,000 locations, in 140 countries.
Business mix: 99% corporate and 1% leisure business

CCRA – a negotiated, preferred-rate hotel program that, has become one of the largest consortia in the world, booking in excess of 20 million hotel room nights each year. CCRA’s reputation for increasing bookings by “double to triple digits” has grown in recent years. The printed directories are first-class in both design and usability and are valuable tools utilized by more than 100,000 agencies, individual agents, and travelers. It offers 30,000 locations in 30+ countries and 100,000 agents worldwide. It sells 27 million room nights a year total
Business mix: 40% corporate travel, 60% leisure travel

Custom Travel Systems – comprises of many independent travel agencies and travel agency consortia, including Hickory Travel Systems, Inc. and FIRST Travel Management International. It is used by 32,000 locations, in 38 countries worldwide
Business mix: 70% corporate travel, 30% leisure

HRG – an American Express Global Business Travel Company, is a network that comprises over 120 countries.

Radius – with 86 shareholder agencies operating 4,600+ branches around the globe, RADIUS, formerly Woodside Travel Trust, has earned a reputation for successfully serving the needs of business travelers worldwide. It offers 4,600+ locations in 87 countries.
Business mix: 70% Corporate, 30 % Leisure

THOR – founded in Colorado, USA over 30 years ago, THOR anticipated the need to create a new service providing commissionable and discounted hotel rates, which its member agencies could recommend to their travelers. THOR’s Worldwide Hotel Program is one of the largest and fastest growing program with over 22,000 hotel partners around the world. 3,700+ member agencies use this worldwide program to book both corporate and leisure travelers.
Business mix: 70% Corporate, 30% Leisure

WIN Global Travel Network – connects corporate clients with region-specific or multi-national travel requirements with travel management experts around the world, making travel more simple. Members of the WIN Global Travel Network can match the global reach of any multi-national travel management company (TMC), harnessing knowledge and technology to drive better value across business and leisure travel; meetings and events; conferences, group travel and destination management. WIN Global Travel Network has Partners in over 70 countries and 6,000+ network locations worldwide

The consortia rate is negotiated between the hotels and travel agencies and is only available to contracted consortia.

Booking.com AV Resell Feature – new way booking.com handles cancellations

Mar 15, 2019 | Connections, Revenue Management

Booking.com AV Resell Feature – new way booking.com handles cancellations

Booking.com has started testing the AV Resell Feature. This can be a great chance for properties which depend heavily on bookings from OTAs.

Booking.com informed us that they started testing the AV Resell Feature. With this feature, booking.com is reselling canceled rooms on its own. The idea is simple – Booking.com holds canceled inventory for 24 hours and actively looks for a replacement for the same dates According to booking.com, the booking.com AV Resell Team even spends extra marketing efforts to do so. In case no replacement can be found, the canceled inventory is freed up and the cancellation is delivered to the property – however, with significant delay. According to booking.com, not all of the cancellations are covered with this experimental mechanism, but only those that fit certain criteria. YieldPlanet assumes this will most probably be high demand dates or dates with limited inventory. This new feature is currently being tested and not all hotels are affected at this point.

Booking.com’s experimental feature can boost its incomes, as the canceled inventory for high demand dates is usually very attractive. We assume that properties which depend heavily on bookings from OTAs would be delighted with this feature. For this group of hotels not only is the chance to get a replacement after cancellation bigger than in case of enabling inventory in a standard way, but also the replacement should exactly fit the canceled dates. According to booking.com, when reselling cancelled inventory to a new guest, the latest prices set by the hotel are being used – not the original rates from the cancelled reservation.

On the other hand, revenue-savvy managers might find the new feature of Booking.com problematic for their properties. By holding the cancelled inventory for 24h, booking.com reduces the chances that this inventory can be resold on other OTAs or by the hotel directly. This feature does lead to the situation that a property receives reservations (modifications to be correct) for dates that are completely booked out. We can imagine the case where reception denies reservation for a loyal guest due to lack of inventory while still has the last room available on booking.com. Most problematic, however, is the case when properties are oversold due to overbooking limits and the cancellations are not registered but resold by booking.com. If the AV Resell Feature will be widely adopted, cancellation probability algorithms in various RMS’ will need to be adjusted for this new reality.

Booking.com allows for the AV Resell Feature to be turned off by contacting their booking.com account manager.

We at YieldPlanet think that new AV Resell Feature can be a great benefit for most hotels in particular in cases where the hotel still has enough inventory and is not overbooked. Turning the AV Resell Feature off would not be our recommended action.

With the Price Optimizer solution, YieldPlanet has the tools to give hoteliers full control over their distribution. The overbooking prevention feature let’s hoteliers automatically distribute a carefully adjusted sold-out price and MLOS whenever there is no availability left. With this feature and our highly adjustable distribution rules, Price Optimizer can give you back the control over your distribution – also the AV Resell Feature.

Get back control over your distribution now and sign up for Price Optimizer.

As a data provider to hundreds of channels in the hospitality industry, YieldPlanet is regularly involved in evaluating or testing new features introduced by our technology partners. Check our blog to be among the first to know about new OTA features.

YieldPlanet is a premium software provider focused on hotel distribution and channel management. It delivers powerful solutions to meet and surpass the challenges of distribution and revenue management. YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is integrated with over 500 channels to help you reach a global market. Our partners include not only PMSes, but also OTAs, Sharing Economy OTAs, Tour Operators, wholesalers, CRSes, GDSes, RMSes, mobile apps, metasearches and booking engines.

Property management system (PMS) and Channel Manager – the perfect duo

Feb 8, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

Property management system (PMS) and Channel Manager – the perfect duo

Digital revolution is gaining momentum and increasingly changes the landscape of the hotel industry. It enforces constant updating of both the business model, as well and the marketing and distribution strategies. Thankfully, increasingly advanced and complex IT solutions, allowing both more efficient guest service and maximizing the performance of a hotel can be the remedy for hoteliers. How does the system infrastructure influence the occupancy rate, finances and guest experience? How to optimally arrange it around the central Property Management System (PMS)?

Free flow of information: PMS, Channel manager, OTA

In order to realize how modern software and opportunities provided by the Internet influence the ongoing functioning of a hotel, it is important to track down the connections between the key systems utilized by modern hotels, namely such components of the data flow chain as OTA, Channel Manager or PMS.

Online Travel Agency (OTA) is nothing more than a sales channel. It is an Internet platform where the hotel’s offer is published and which can be used at any time by potential customers. That includes both large and commonly known websites, such as Booking.com or Expedia, as well as much smaller, specialized sites, focusing solely on business or mountain hotels with SPA facilities or facilities attractive for golf lovers. Taking into account the fact that hotels cooperate with many such agencies, which allow them to reach broader and more varied groups of potential customers, it is necessary to have an adequate system in place, which makes day-to-day management easier. And that brings us to Channel Manager. In simplest terms it is a system allowing faster and more effective management of price plans for specific channels from the level of one control point, automatic bookings and sending information to OTA in real time regarding prices and the availability of rooms.

An extreme link of the data flow chain is in each case the Property Management System (PMS), that is an advanced system of managing a property. And even though each PMS offers slightly different functionalities, it can be argued that its main role is storage of information on hotel bookings, the current number of available rooms and accepting new bookings incoming via the Channel Manager or the sales department. PMS transfers the most recent data on the availability of rooms to a Channel Manager, which are then directed to all OTA connected with the Channel Manager and in case of a purchase made in one of the channels, PMS gets informed about this fact by the Channel Manager and enters the booking straight to the calendar. And despite the fact that a PMS is a key component of the automated multi-channel sales process, it also fulfils a variety of other functions. It is an everyday working tool for hoteliers, allows to manage information on guests, accounts and many other ongoing operations.

The evolution of PMS

Over the last few years PMS systems underwent a major evolution. They have gained many new functionalities, moved to the cloud and offer increasingly broad capabilities in terms of integration with other systems and tools. At first, they allowed only to execute the basic activities associated with booking management, check-ins and check-outs, allocation of rooms, availability management, as well as matters relating to invoicing. Nowadays, mainly due to integration with other systems and ever-changing expectations of customers, PMS have moved way beyond the hotel reception. They have become a key tools not only for managing a hotel facility and its revenues but also, which is vital in an era of increasing competitiveness, guest experience.

The best PMS available on the market allow effective service of hotel restaurants, banquet and conference facilities, parking lots and SPA. They allow efficient and flexible management of the housekeeping team, due to instant updates on mobile devices regarding guests leaving their rooms or the hotel, connection with other hotel systems in order to control heating and air conditioning, as well as management of switchboards, mini bars and pay TV in rooms.

Guest Experience and Revenue Management

What is especially important from the standpoint of hotel managers is undoubtedly the financial results, which are directly affected by the matters associated with guests opinions on the hotel. And even though it might be difficult to implement, modern PMS have a lot to offer in this area. One of the goals of implementing a Property Management System at a hotel is to increase the number of returning customers as well as the number of positive opinions on the facility. It can be achieved by proper understanding of the customer needs, gathering data on their likes and preferences, as well as communicating with them, not only during the booking process and their stay, but also during the phases preceding check-ins and check-outs. Usage of PMS and other innovative tools to individualize guest experience is a key factor influencing increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. It mostly concerns the young generation, which perfectly understands modern technologies, is willing to use them and share their insights and opinions on various aspects of life, including travel, with their communities. In order to improve sales results and at the same time improve guest experience, it is worthy to connect a PMS with the hotel CRM system in order to manage customer relationships and support the effectiveness of the offered loyalty programs. What is more, by “arming” reception with advanced data and analyses on guests, trends and behavioural patterns, as well as expenses and preferences we significantly increase the chances for an effective upsell or cross-sell, which is in consequence positively reflected in the hotel performance.

When selecting a PMS system the key factor is also the possibility for it to communicate with other systems, including mainly the system managing the channels (Channel Manger), hotel booking systems (Booking Engine or CRS) or systems optimizing the applied price policy (RMS). While communication with a Channel Manager or a Booking Engine is offered by an increasing number of PMS, the quality of such connection should be analysed before deciding upon the right solution. What is more, data synchronizations with a RMS is still a rarity for much too many PMS. What are the consequences of an improper selection of a PMS? A Property Management System which does not offer a two-way data synchronization will be able to deal with intercepting bookings but it will not be able to effectively transfer information on rooms and their availability to the Channel Manager and in consequence to the OTA. From the standpoint of managing revenues it is also important for a PMS to make all of the booking data available to a RMS, in order to allow them to properly recommend rates for the online sales channels. An incorrect decision may effectively ruin any plans associated with automation of hotel operations and improving its performance.

Ample opportunities of communication between a PMS and other systems are especially vital in the context of hotels with an average or large number of rooms and facilities, lacking their own sales departments and aimed towards attracting guests solely via the Internet. Effective management of revenues and price policy, in particular in case of larger facilities, is extremely troublesome and time consuming due to several constantly evolving factors. Without automated systems integrated with a central property management system taking a full advantage of the hotel’s potential is nearly impossible. What are the benefits of communication between PMS and RMS? By adding a Revenue Management System to the set of distribution tools of a hotel we can increase its revenue even by 9%, which was confirmed by a report published by Starfleet Research entitled “Harnessing the Power of Next – Generation Hospitality Revenue Management”.

Cooperation with many Online Travel Agencies (OTA) is on one hand an opportunity to reach a significant number of potential customers and on the other hand a risk of losing a part of the revenues in form of commissions for intermediaries. Advanced Channel Manager is a tool allowing to automate the omnichannel strategy, as well as the manager cockpit, offering a quick preview of key distribution channels and their performance. By skilfully modifying the applied sales strategy and changing the price policy one can more or less effectively encourage guests to use channels charging lower commission or promote direct bookings via the hotel’s website. While listing the benefits it is worth to also mention that connecting a PMS with a Channel Manager is tantamount to making the information on the number of available rooms available in real time. Benefits are two-fold in this case: it allows not only to increase sales opportunities but also to improve the positon in the OTA ranking. It is also worth noting that any cancellations are processed in real time and the vacated rooms are almost instantly available for potential customers.

What to look for when selecting a PMS system?

In order to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by the modern PMS systems, it is worthy to verify in detail their communication potential. The most advanced and thus the most efficient systems effectively connect with the Channel Manager, directlyor indirectly connect with the booking system (Booking Engine, CRS) and the RMS and offer two-way data synchronization. There are relatively few of those on the market, and thus an alternative solution might be to combine a PMS with a high quality Channel Manager , which will effectively handle communication with a Booking Engine and advanced price recommendations of the RMS.

In terms of the sphere of functionality, it is reasonable to also verify the possibilities of a specific system and the chances of supplementing it with additional modules. They may increase the benefits and optimize processes, which are currently operated ineffectively or operated fully manually by the reception employees. An effective PMS system is also the best data source, which may be used for broadly defined analytical purposes and also for ongoing reports regarding occupancy rates or the hotel’s performance. Such possibilities should always speak in favour of a specific solution.

The progressing digitalization carries not only a wide range of benefits but also various threats. One of the threats includes issues of correct storage of data concerning customers and their credit cards, which are transferred between the hotel systems. The applicable regulations require the hoteliers to fulfil a number of obligations within that scope and establish a system infrastructure that will comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. When choosing a PMS for a hotel, it should be mandatory to verify how the producer addresses the issue of PCI Compliance.

From the perspective of a hotel manager the matters associated with costs of implementing a system are especially vital. Price is undoubtedly a significant parameter and often a deciding factor influencing the final decision on selecting a specific solution but it should never be a sole criterion for the selection. PMS intended for small facilities are not overly complex and thus the costs associated with its usage may amount to a few hundreds PLN annually. The amounts are correspondingly higher for large facilities and often amount to tens of thousand of PLN. One should be aware of the fact that the system fee is not the only charge that a user is expected to pay – it can be significantly increased by fees charged for system support and troubleshooting.

See which PMS are integrated with the YieldPlanet Channel Manager.

YieldPlanet at FITUR 2019

Jan 21, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

YieldPlanet at FITUR 2019

This year we will be attending the most important International Tourism Fair that takes place in Spain, FITUR 2019. Our stand will be located in Hall 10 in the Fitur Know How & Export Area – STAND B17.

This year our team has prepared surprises for all the hoteliers who come by our stand. From raffles to special promotions for contracts closed during the fair.

On Wednesday, January 23rd and Thursday, January 24th, our representatives will be offering live demos of two of our systems: the Channel Manager and the Price Optimizer.

For more information on what will is scheduled on each day, please, check out our program below:

Wednesday 23rd:

We will be receiving visitors from 10:00 to 18:00 at our stand, offering demos of the YieldPlanet Channel Manager and YieldPlanet Price Optimizer.

If you do not know our solutions or have not used them for more than a year, we are convinced that you will be surprised to see the new integrations of our intelligent distribution tools.

Request a meeting or demo and we will attend you in a personalized manner in our stand:
To request an appointment fill in the form or email us.

At 17:30 we will raffle a one-year contract for free of the Channel Manager (Essential version – Up to 5 channels) to everyone who has requested information and who has the raffle tickets. Ask our representatives to learn more about the conditions of the this raffles.

* Raffle limited to 20 participants
* Ballots will be given to the first 20 to arrive between 17:00 to 17:30 in our stand.

Thursday 24:

We will be receiving visitors from 10:00 to 17:00 at our stand, offering demos of the YieldPlanet Channel Manager and YieldPlanet Price Optimizer.

At 17:30 we celebrating our yieldTonic Fitur 2019:

Have a Yieldtonic with us, while our Sales Managers, Roberto Sánchez and Tristán Cnudde present the main functionalities of our RMS Price Optimizer and the new characteristics of YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager.

Discover the Channel Manager’s new functionalities through our interactive presentation.

At 6:00 pm we will raffle among the attendees:

1. One year of free Channel Manager service (Essential version – Up to 5 channels)
2. 6 months of free Price Optimizer Start service with initial audit included.

Raffle limited to 20 participants
A ballot will be given to the first 20 to arrive from 5:00 p.m. until 5:30 p.m.

We hope to see you at FITUR 2019!

The basic ingredients of the revenue management II

Dec 31, 2018 | Revenue Management

The basic ingredients of the revenue management II

In the second article of the series devoted to hotel revenue management we will examine its main components.

Segmentation

The need for segmentation is a logical consequence of diversity among clients (business travel and tourists, individuals and groups, domestic or foreign, etc.) and the services offered by the hotel (room categories, length and conditions of stay, packages, etc.). Segmentation allows to optimize availability, rates and revenues within individual segments of the hotel’s services. It is important to precisely determine the results of your activity in individual sectors. The concept of segmentation has changed very little since the beginnings of Revenue Management, however, it must currently take into account the enormous changes that took place in the distribution of hotel services within the last few years and the associated increase in rate transparency.

Forecasting

Forecasting is the most complex area of Revenue Management and is often based on complex calculations. It is also the hardest element of Revenue Management to implement. Effective usage of forecasting to boost sales and maximize revenues requires hotels to utilize a broad set of techniques and simultaneously prepare demand forecasts, revenue forecasts, strategic forecasts and operational forecasts. Each type of forecast serves a different goal and requires a different approach while having its own specific role in the overall maximization of hotel revenues.

The revenue management strategy

Although a clearly defined Revenue Management strategy is crucial, effectively communicating its goals and convincing all of the hotel staff to accept them is equally important. The Revenue Manager will only be successful if he takes into account the point of view of all departments while keeping in mind that the opinions of the management are as important as those held by lower-level employees. Some hotels go as far as to include the customers in their decision-making process and, thus, make use of an objective, external opinion when devising a sales strategy.

A Revenue Management strategy should set precise, achievable goals and outline a clear set of criteria used to determine whether they are being met. Each of the hotel’s departments should be held accountable for lacking performance and be rewarded for successfully implementing the strategy.

Rates

Revenue Management is a key tool for setting hotel room rates. The goal is to select the right product for the right customer and sell it at the right time for the right price. Setting the most beneficial hotel rates requires adopting a scientific approach, but nevertheless remains an art. Inadequate rates, being a result of adopting an incorrect customer habits model for example, may lead to lost opportunities for increasing hotel revenue. It is important to observe discipline when introducing Revenue Management and to not bend under external pressure – lowering rates when faced with decreased demand, for example, may cause a spiral of rate drops in the market and have an impact on the long-term profitability of the hotel.

Availability strategies

Decisions regarding availability, coupled with a rate strategy, have a profound impact on hotel revenue and profitability. Offering a product meant for the right client at the right time is the key to success. It is also very important to effectively manage availability across all distribution channels and to not focus solely on privileged clients.

Social networks and client opinions on the Internet

Many hotel operators wonder how best to use the potential of social media and websites that allow customers to publish opinions. These media have a direct influence on the manner in which you conduct your business and the new modes of communication allow to build and maintain more effective relationships with customers. Hotels must learn to use this to their advantage and those that do gain a competitive edge.

Measuring and analyzing effectiveness

That which can be measured is easier to achieve. This holds true for many sectors and is especially important in the hotel industry. Setting precise goals and comparing outcomes with objectives using appropriate indicators (KPI – key performance indicators) is crucial. Implementing a remuneration system that rewards individuals who contribute to hotel revenues is equally important. Employees will focus on increasing sales and maximizing profits if appraisals and remunerations are based on hotel revenue and profitability.

This article was meant to present the key elements of Revenue Management. The next article in this series will delve into more detail on segmentation, rate strategies, forecasts and comparative analyses of hotels.

Read PART 1: A step-by-step guide to achieving success with revenue management.

About the Author

Zak Ali, the Global Revenue Development Director at YieldPlanet, has over 12 years of experience in Revenue Management and hotel distribution. Zak has managed hotels of various sizes in many of the world’s key markets, including London, Dubai and Singapore. He has also taken part in creating a global rate application which has been implemented in 3000 hotels. Zak is a Certified Revenue Management Executive (CRME), a title awarded by the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI).

5 revenue strategy hacks that you MUST implement during the Christmas holidays period

Dec 28, 2018 | Revenue Management, Revenue Strategy

5 revenue strategy hacks that you MUST implement during the Christmas holidays period

In this festive season hoteliers have to start doing everything they can to fill up the rooms of their properties. This is the moment to close the year with green numbers. What can be done in order to achieve this goal?

Here are some revenue management strategies that you can work with this Christmas and that can help you improve your occupancy and maximize your direct income.

Sell, but sell at a higher price with upselling:

In sales, “upselling” is the practice of encouraging customers to pay more for a similar product (but of higher quality) than the one they are thinking of choosing.

A client is browsing the website of your hotel and is looking to book a double room, but, just before finalizing the booking, they are shown the option of the superior double room (more spacious and with better amenities).

How can you convince the client to book the double superior instead of the double standard at this Christmas season or at any time of the year?

1. Use high-quality photographs in your booking engine, highlighting differential spaces.

Include a text such as “Only €30 more”, to help the customer focus on the value of this upgrade.
3. Promote scarcity and urgency as booking.com does by appealing to the fear that this offer or room is limited.

Create and promote the “early booking rate”Many people like to book ahead of time. Take advantage of this Christmas season to include early booking rates for 2019. Improve your short-term cash flow by fully charging a reservation that will be made in 40 days or more. Another advantage of this strategy is that it helps you drastically reduce your cancellation fees.

Offer and promote packages that guarantee reservations

Create suitable packages for this time of year, designed for families, singles and seniors.

For many families, Christmas is a time to change the routine, not to spend thousands of hours cooking for your entire family. Your hotel can offer a package for these families that include accommodation, dinners and, of course, some activities for the children.

Another segment that of clients we recommend targeting your offer at for this Christmas is the singles. Offer special packages of half-board or full-board for singles that include a Christmas or New Year party and/or an event to meet people.

Finally, the third age segment or grandparents can also bring benefits and ensure greater occupancy at the end of the year. As life expectancy increases around the world, there are more retired people and not everyone has family to visit. Offer half-board or full-board packages with specific activities for them including, of course, your New Year’s Eve dinner.

Optimize your multi-channel strategy

During the last decade, the hotel industry has undergone dramatic changes, particularly in revenue management. OTAs, GDSs and metasearch websites are competing for customer service and all are affecting the margins of the hotels. This is why hotels have to optimize their channel mix and analyze in depth the costs and benefits of each one of them in order to develop a holistic strategy that generates income and profit flows that are sustainable in the future.

How do you do it?

On one hand, analyze the costs of each one of the channels: the rates of the CRS, the commissions of the OTAs and, of course, the direct channel. On the other hand, understand the history of each of the channels and how they have impacted sales. Then maximize the profitability of each channel, evaluating the total contribution of each of them. For example, the channels that bring guests who in the long run make greater complimentary expense and repeat are much more profitable than those that bring customers who do not consume anything at the hotel and don’t return.

Optimize your products and prices based on your history and customers

Develop a strategy of balanced room types. This is done by evaluating your rooms and the prices of your products and how you describe them in the sales channels.

Commit to actively managing your inventory and selling your premium product instead of upgrading to boost rates.

Finally, understand your clients to find out which ones offer the most value to your hotel. Different customer profiles have a strong preference for particular channels, but you have to know which channels bring us customers that spend more in your establishment. If you manage to capture the additional expense of your customers, instead of just the income per room, you can make a clearer picture of the total value of the client and with them accurately forecast the demand and set rates optimized per room.

With these 5 revenue management ideas for this Christmas, we hope you can generate more bookings and more revenue for your hotel.

Instagram for hotels: 4 strategies to attract gourmets and get more bookings

Dec 19, 2018 | Revenue Management

Instagram for hotels: 4 strategies to attract gourmets and get more bookings

Instagram strategies to attract gourmets

Food tourism has developed significantly in the recent years. Interests of travellers began to change, which allowed us to fill a niche on the market: the market of travellers who are food lovers.

This market niche chooses its tourist destination to enjoy a unique culinary experience. Tasting the local cuisine and going out to dinner is a way to discover places and contact with the local people.

This romance involving food and travellers is an excellent marketing opportunity for hotels.

Undoubtedly, Instagram is the ideal channel to attract the attention of food lovers travelling or popularly known as Foodies (gourmets). It is visual and makes it easier for travellers to make decisions.

Why Instagram?

Instagram is fashionable. Instagram is in the full sense of the word a social medium for travelling gourmets. Not using this social medium would be a bad strategy.

Many visitors to hotel restaurants will familiarize themselves with their profile on the Instagram to help them decide in advance what to order from the card.

Therefore, hotels are developing their menu in the most photogenic way possible to attract more customers and encourage more frequent sharing of comments on Instagram or other social media of the same kind.

In a recent survey of about 300 hotels, restaurants and food were the most frequently discussed (11,700 posts) topic in social media posts, followed by “Beverages/Bar”. (6,400 posts). This is something you should take into account in your Instagram strategy.

These results show how important it is for hotel guests to share culinary experiences and the fact that hotels use social media to promote their own visually appealing dishes and attract more travellers obsessed with food.

Hotels using Instagram marketing to sell food to food lovers can thus differentiate themselves from the competition, delight hotel guests staying in their homes with food, and at the same time increase the willingness to book, which in the long run means higher income.

Therefore, we share below the four most successful strategies on Instagram to attract gourmets and get more bookings at the hotel.

1. Work with influencers

Working with social influencers is an excellent way to gain credibility and promote the hotel restaurant to a wider audience.

Prepare a list of influencers that fit into the profile of your hotel and your style. Contact them and implement your strategy. Reach out to a wider audience and be more visible in different parts of the world.

Be creative. Invite a travel writer or culinary blogger to your hotel and let them taste the tasting menu comprised of your outstanding dishes. We assure you that the results will be excellent

2. Choose the right hashtags

In addition, choosing the right combination of hashtags can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of posts on the Instagram. Make sure you choose a general range of hashtags as well as the one from the market niche you want to reach.

Do not forget that your hashtags should always be related to the content of your images. It is important to test the hashtags to determine which have the greatest impact on hotel comments, likes and bookings.

3. Comments increase engagement

It is also important to add contextual comments to the images, such as the name of the food, its origin or information about a special ingredient worth mentioning.

Not all dishes have a story, but a funny comment or conversation starter can help increase the involvement of your fans and new gourmets who will be following your account through interesting and visual posts on your hotel profile. Let people talk about your hotel.

4. Optimize your profile on Instagram

And don’t forget to constantly optimize your Instagram profile in line with trends in social media, hospitality and F&B. Don’t forget that both the quality of the images and the descriptive part of your profile are of great importance. Be creative and distinguish yourself from others.

Changes in Revenue Management that can help improve the hotel’s performance

Dec 5, 2018 | Revenue Management

Changes in Revenue Management that can help improve the hotel’s performance

As revenue management in the hospitality industry grows, hospitality professionals need to be aware of their key role in the hotel sales strategy, paying particular attention to new market trends. Technology and customer behaviour are basic aspects that every professional should take into account and evaluate. All the latest trends in revenue management focus on changing customer preferences and technology that acts as an obstacle and a supporting element at the same time.

Below you will find three trends in revenue management and how hoteliers should approach them:

1. Prices for regular customers

Loyal customers of your brand are ready to pay more for your product or service. However, in order to get more direct bookings, many hotels can offer discounts to clients who book directly through the hotel’s website.

In fact, revenue managers need to explore all booking channels and the marketing costs of each of them (including the direct channel) to avoid situations where guests make bookings through OTA (Online Travel Agents) that charge high commissions.

The direct booking channel also involves costs, but the task of the revenue manager is to optimise the costs across different channels.

2. New sales channels

Although OTA and meta search engines have long been dominant in online distribution channels, Google and Airbnb seem to be prepared to throw them off the pedestal.

Google, which is a step ahead of Kayak in terms of airline references, now enables customers to book hotels instantly using the travel tool. Google offers the same selection range and good or better conversion rates compared to Expedia or Booking.com. To this must be added the 3.5 billion searches made every day at Google. Google has a fixed rate of about 10 percent, which is much less than the commission charged by some OTAs, which can reach 30%.

In addition, Airbnb has officially opened its hotel distribution platform. Boutique and B&B hotels are tempted by offers without long-term contracts and low “service rates” ranging from 3 to 5 percent.

3. Personalization for generating direct bookings

In a survey conducted in the United States, more than half of consumers check their email 10 times a day and prefer to receive brand updates via email than via regular mail, mobile applications or social media.

When it comes to brand updates related to travel and accommodation, 84 percent of respondents prefer these emails to be personalised.

The personalization process is not only carried out in the company itself, on the spot. The new trend shows that personalisation must start during the booking process.

It is not necessary to have a database with preferences or specific data, but the ability to analyse and anticipate the needs of clients based on characteristics or similar attributes of their stay.

The three new trends in revenue management that we find interesting this year are: pricing strategy, personalization and the inclusion of new players in online distribution.

Download an e-book: “RMS algorithms during the pandemic: challenge or opportunity?”

Dec 3, 2018 | Hotelier Academy, Revenue Management

Download an e-book: “RMS algorithms during the pandemic: challenge or opportunity?”

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospitality business was one of the sectors which were hit the hardest. Nevertheless, we truly believe that awareness of the situation and proper preparation can bring a perfect solution, help to save many hotel properties from closure and breathe life into them again when the vaccine is generally available, restrictions are lifted and travellers are back. Therefore, our experts prepared free practical e-book: “RMS algorithms during the pandemic: challenge or opportunity?”

From this e-book you will learn:

how the algorithms work in Price Optimizer
what challenges and opportunities COVID-19 has brought
how we can use this knowledge to react upon the crisis

DOWNLOAD E-BOOK

If you have a question, contacts us by sending an email to sales@yieldplanet.com.

You might also be interested in reading:

What are your online distribution costs and is there a way to reduce them?
Free e-book about guest communication tools
Transitioning from short stay tourism to the mid-term housing market for a sustainable rental income
Booking.com Recovery Toolkit

YieldPlanet participates in FITUR 2019

Nov 27, 2018 | Revenue Management

YieldPlanet participates in FITUR 2019

This year, FITUR, the leading fair in the Spanish and Ibero-American market, will be held from 23 to 27 January 2019 at the Feria de Madrid with a larger exhibition area than past years.
FITUR 2019 is preparing one of its most complete editions, in which sustainability, technology and specialization, will continue to have a prominent role.
Yieldplanet will be present with two of its tools: Channel Manager and Price Optimizer, to help your establishment increase revenue.
YieldPlanet Channel Manager is an extremely fast and accurate distribution solution. It allows you to synchronize data between your establishment with hundreds of OTAs, GDS and your own web page. YieldPlanet offers the most flexible solution on the market to optimize the prices of your rooms and your offers.

The YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is the most flexible Channel Manager in the market, allowing you to combine formulas within the mapping without limitations, assigning maximum or minimum quotas for a certain type of room, even if you include it in the general shared quota, in addition to combining discount supplements or meal plan loaded by occupation or by room.
On Wednesday, January 23, we will offer a Master Demo of the Yieldplanet’s Channel Manager in our Stand at Pavilion 10 10B17 at 17:30. You cannot miss this opportunity!

YieldPlanet’s Price Optimizer is a combination of an income management system and a channel manager for intelligent distribution of prices. Price Optimizer drives your RevPAR through effective and fast performance management.
It optimizes prices, availability and restrictions, and distribute them according to the strategy that you define automatically to all connected channels.
And it works connected to your PMS as a comprehensive solution, so you can effortlessly manage your dynamic pricing strategy.
On Thursday, January 24, we will offer a Master Demo of Price Optimizer in our Stand at Pavilion 10 10B17 at 17:30. You cannot miss it!

If you want to know more about our tools, request an appointment with us at FITUR or visit us at Stand number 10B17 in the FITUR KNOW HOW EXPORT pavilion.

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